"The only important elements in any society
are the artistic and the criminal,
because they alone, by questioning the society's values,
can force it to change."-Samuel R. Delany

RENDERING GELATINOUS WINDMILL OF DICKS

THIS IS GOING TO BE THE BEST NON-EUCLIDIAN SPLATTERJOUST EVER

It seems that the only people who support anarchy are faggots, who want their pathetic immoral lifestyle accepted by the mainstream society. It wont be so they try to create their own.-Oldman34, friend to all children

Hoban has been channeling this 'service minded' approach to martial arts for a long time. I agree with you Tom. I think that the clearest read on this is to simple take it as a 'mission statement' about how to live life in general… just like educators and corporate leaders all seem to be calling themselves "agents for change" these days instead of 'LEADERS'…

When I see Hoban or his students dragging purse snatchers into Police Stations making citizens arrests.. or lecturing people for J Walking.. then I will have to adjust my opinion.

He obviously didn't claim the country of his birth, so I'd argue he did serve his country, or at least the one he felt a connection with.

Again, you're missing what I was even trying to reason. That some good came from him, regardless of his true motives or what have you.

Keep in mind I'm following your request and not googling anything. I could possibly come up with better cases. Either way, that was still only one of my initial points, even if we rule this one out.

As should be obvious, but, hell, it's the internet: Hitler was one of the worst people who ever lived and I'm not in any way defending or endorsing him. I am merely going to mention a couple of historical facts.

Hitler was rejected for service in the Austrian army as unfit early in 1914. Later that year, he requested and received a waiver to serve as a non-Bavarian in a Bavarian infantry unit in the German army (Germany had only unified in 1871 and Bavaria was still a semi-independent kingdom under the German government), which was allied with Austria at the time.

Hitler saw a few weeks of regular infantry duty but most of his time was spent as a bike messenger running messages between unit HQ and frontline units along the Western front. Hitler was wounded in the leg once and gassed once.

Hitler was promoted once, to Gefreiter. This often used to be described as equivalent to Lance-Corporal, but is now generally said to be roughly the same as PFC (Private First Class). Hitler declined a further offer of promotion to Unteroffizier (Corporal), apparently because it would have meant changing from messenger duties to infantry duties that he found less to his liking.

Hitler did live in Bavaria before WWI partly (at least) to avoid mandatory military service in the Austrian army. He was also not popular with his fellow soldiers for the most part, since he kept to himself, painted, and read rather than drinking and playing games, etc.

When Hitler ran for office and especially after he was in power, the Nazi propaganda machine created a war hero where there was none. And near the end of the war, Hitler was hospitalized after being hit in a poison gas attack by British troops. One of the symptoms was blindness. Evidence that became available relatively recently suggests that the blindness was psychosomatic, caused by the trauma of the experience rather than by any organic neurological effect of the gas.

Recognizing the points mentioned in the last two paragraphs, the fullest account of Hitler's WWI service (Thomas Weber, Hitler's First War [Oxford, 2010; rev. ed., 2011]) very much downplays and minimizes Hitler's military service. But Hitler did in fact fulfill his duties in a way that led to gradual offers of promotion and to some decoration. He seems to have been a competent soldier who was well thought of by his commanding officer.

These are mostly facts, at least (just writing this to differentiate it from the crap itwasntme came up with). I'd still say some of it is up to debate, for example him being well thought of by his commanding officer. From what I had read before, his best quality had been that he was mostly unobtrusive and getting wounded. Much of the praise he later got from war comrades is considered to be dubious because they got rewarded for that by the NSDAP with money and operative offices.

Also the "messenger duties being more to his liking" had certainly a lot to do with the fact that it was a lot safer. Just a finer point of this I wanted to mention.

Also the "messenger duties being more to his liking" had certainly a lot to do with the fact that it was a lot safer. Just a finer point of this I wanted to mention.

Which kind of implies that he wouldn't be much of a 'warrior'. More like someone who can motivate, manipulate and inspire people to do the fighting that he wasn't willing to do himself. One of the core concepts of true leadership is to be willing (and capable) of doing anything that you ask your subordinate soldiers to do. They also respect you more if you have actually done it.

Hitler was a different animal; he used what he had, intelligence and the ability to manipulate people into seeing a greater good that wasn't there. Between his mental illnesses and his abuse of drugs, there is really no way to gauge him other than the fact that he was a monster.